1982 Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
A handsome Belgian sailor on shore leave in the port of Brest, who is also a drug-smuggler and murderer, embarks upon a voyage of highly charged and violent homosexual self-discovery that will change him forever from the man he once was.
Brad Davis Franco Nero Jeanne Moreau Laurent Malet Hanno Pöschl Günther Kaufmann Burkhard Driest Roger Fritz Dieter Schidor Natja Brunckhorst Robert van Ackeren Werner Asam Isolde Barth Axel Bauer Neil Bell Gilles Gavois Wolf Gremm Karl-Heinz von Hassel Y Sa Lo Michael McLernon Frank Ripploh Karl Scheydt Vitus Zeplichal Isa Jank
Querelle – Ein Pakt mit dem Teufel, Kerel, Um Pacto com o Diabo, Querelle – En pakt med djevelen, ケレル, Ο Καυγατζής, 크렐, Querelle De Brest, 雾港水手, Querelle (Un pacto con el diablo), Керель, קארל, Керел, Querelle - Um Pacto com o Diabo, 霧港水手, Matrosen och stjärnan, 쿼렐리, ქერელი
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Pure, unadulterated, uncompromising Fassbinder. A fantastic exploration into sexuality, masculinity, and art. Plus, I had a boner for like 80% of the movie, so that's a perk.
Rewatching this, all I can think about are Fassbinder's earlier Fontane Effi Briest and Berlin Alexanderplatz. Like those, this is technically an adaptation, but Fassbinder isn't just translating the work to film -- he's presenting his own emotional response to it, making, as the on-screen title notes, 'a film about Jean Genet's Querelle de Brest.' To that end, this feels closest to Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz epilogue, a hazy, sweat-soaked fantasy where Genet's story of love and betrayal plays out on a soundstage that seems pulled straight out of both Fassbinder and the Franco Nero character's wet dreams. A world informed and inhabited by decades of gay fetish imagery, where the cabaret singer's songs are taken from Oscar Wilde, where knives…
People say art imitates life, and if that's the case, I'm sure it doesn't apply to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's life.
As Fassbinder's final feature before drugs took his life, Querelle is probably the best attempt to project Fassbinder's turbulent life, onto the vessel of an attractive homosexual sailor in search of love in a phallic coastal city, while hiding away his true self.
Querelle is at heart an arthouse erotic thriller, with elements of murder, homosexuality and repressed desires. In the movie men are unabashedly acting homoerotic towards each other, while seldom venturing into the realm of explosive sex scenes. It's largely a slow-burn of closeted men's journey of self-exploration, at the costs of several lives and several broken hearts.…
“Querelle’s inner harmony was indestructible, because it was sealed in that heaven of heavens where beauty unites with beauty.”
If there was ever a movie made exclusively for faggots this is it. A movie where the thesis seems to be that nothing is more beautiful than a man who finds love in another man, and loves himself *because* of it, not despite it. Love and lust and beauty and desire and sweat and dirt and blood and violence and sex and grief and spirituality and reflection and self worth.... cried a lot obviously.
Also Franco Nero in this really awakened something in me.... I can’t even explain it he’s just so. UGH. The fact that this operates successfully as a fun camp experience And a deeply moving drama And essentially softcore porn. God.
Querelle is a film that demands rewatching. Its surface is so insistent that it almost feels like a defense — a shield againstthose determined to focus on the film's artifice and see nothing else — but underneath lies a roiling stew of sex and violence; love and dismay; misery and terrible pride.
I feel entirely unequipped to intelligently address much of anything about it, but Fassbinder's work is overwhelmingly beautiful, and transfixing, and terribly somber beneath (within) its bright colors and chiseled physiques. It's meticulously crafted, from the mannered dialogue and performances to the entirely constructed, cramped landscape in which the story plays out. The set has at least four distinct sections (the ship, the club, the overlook, and the…
the majority of Fassbinder's work is somewhat cynical about love - both heterosexual and otherwise - and while Querelle is certainly not a straightforward, optimistic love story, there's a degree of tenderness to the film that's somewhat lacking in other Fassbinder films, as we watch Querelle go from being purely an object of sexual desire to somebody who is able to love others and to accept love from others. while the film is perhaps Fassbinder's most explicitly homosexual, the hardship of learning to accept love from others and learning that you deserve to be loved isn't something that's inherently homosexual at all. while the obvious reading here is Querelle discovering that he's gay, he's also in a way discovering his…
Querelle was the first Rainer Werner Fassbinder film I ever saw, and it has never relinquished its spot as my favorite. I have long wondered, however, whether it would retain that status upon revisit, now that I'm more familiar with Fassbinder's work. It turns out that I needn't have wondered: less than ten minutes into my rewatch, I felt like weeping at how beautiful and how perfect and how very Fassbinder it is.
In adapting Jean Genet's novel, Fassbinder goes home, embracing all of his most familiar sentiments and themes. Querelle is all surfaces, fiercely cynical and clear-eyed about the catastrophic state in which humanity finds itself, even in a world built on fantasy. But it is also achingly honest…
the legacy that was left behind on June 10th, 1982 following the death of German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder is one that needs no introduction, especially not from me. one thing that i’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the fact that he essentially had three last films - Veronika Voss, which was the last film that he directed to be released in his lifetime, Kamikaze 1989, his last on-screen appearance as an actor, and of course, Querelle, his final, posthumous release. if Kamikaze 1989 is the last look at a man who is about to die and Veronika Voss is the last word from him than Querelle feels like what is essentially his dying dream put to film.
"see, if its fun, theres nothing wrong with it"
fassy goes TOP GUN-drunk on masculinity beneath endless marigold sunsets. no humans, all theory: mishimaesque. "YOUNG MAN NEEDS BOYS WITH BIG COCKS"
Week 6: July 25 - 31 sex worker week (vimeo)
letterboxd.com/pd187/list/klons-sizzlin-summer-2020-challenge/
"I would love to make a personal statement. While being President of the Jury, I would love to express my disappointment in not having been able to convince my colleagues to place R.W. Fassbinder's "Querelle" among the winners. As a matter of fact, I've found myself alone in defending the movie. Nevertheless, I keep on thinking that, although controversial, R.W. Fassbinder final movie, want it or not, love it or hate it, will one day find its place in the history of cinema."
- Marcel Carné on withdrawing from as President of the Jury of the 1982 Venice Film Festival
Querelle, Fassbinder’s final film, was released only months after the director’s death from a lethal interaction between cocaine and sleeping…
